Little Simple Things That Make You Feel Awesome

My 20-some year old son had to go someplace right after dinner tonight. I could tell he had a date 'cause he was dressed up and looking all handsome. :slight_smile:

What small things infuse you with joy these days?

This afternoon, I felt a bit heavy-lidded. I put on my favorite YouTube mix (all songs in languages I don’t understand), and just lay down and looked into space, and let little dreamettes flow over me leaving fleeting and ephemeral impressions that real conscious life doesn’t permit. Glimpses of a universe I am not normally allowed to visit.

jtur88: That is cool! I believe I have glimpsed that universe myself now and again.

Watching “I Love Lucy” reruns while relaxing in bed.

Any amount of sunlight. We’ve had a spate of incredible cloudiness for the past 2 weeks, with barely a peep of sunny warmth. I sat outside for 5 minutes before work yesterday because the sun was peeking chillily through a haze of fog. With my eyes closed, it almost felt like a real spring day. I’m up so early today because the sun is supposed to come out for a couple of hours before it gets cloudy/rainy later. As soon as I see sunlight, I’ll be sitting outside with a book. :o

A hot shower. I can feel sick, gross, tired and just completely subhuman, yet once that warm water starts pouring over me, I feel my life ebbing back into me. Insert dead, come out functional.

My GF will often make care packages for me, most of the time it’s baked goods.

Always makes me feel all warm and gooey on the inside.

My garden is quite small and very urban. It’s weed infested, ill kept, over grown and messy. Toads, slugs, dandelions, dog damage and invasive species. In places too shaded, in other sun roasted. The black raspberries and grapes run rampant, impossible to contain!

I’m not even very good at it! Plus, I’m a much better gardener in spring than in August, by then my plants are pretty much fending for themselves!

But it’s my happy place this time of year. I spend rainy days filling my freezer with pre made dinners so when the sun shines I can work in my garden almost to exhaustion, without worrying about dinner!

Well, these things bring me joy, for starters. One man’s trash and all that.

I bought a giant-ass print of this painting.

17th-century octopus contessa dressed in her finest court attire, with her beloved squid.

I’m sure some people think it’s weird as all hell. It makes me happy beyond measure. Who doesn’t want a squid baby? I can’t wait to get a nice frame and stick in my foyer.

I’m a store cashier. Whenever I check out an order for a parent with a young child, I always point to the child and say “You’re paying, right?”

The reactions I get from both parent and child are priceless.

The other part of that joy is that my husband just accepts my weird. I texted him the link and was like, ‘‘I bought this. It’s going on our wall. Non-negotiable.’’

And he was just like, ‘‘Yep, that’s weird all right. You’re a squid.’’

He’s taken to calling me Octopus Contessa ever since.

Lots of small things make me happy. The most recent one – at night I clean the water tub and give the ducks and chickens fresh water. The ducks get so excited and look up at me like I am a God.

They babble on and on about how great I am in between sips of water. “Look! She’s changed our water from brown to clear. She’s a miracle worker!” :smiley:

CheshireKat, that’s so cute about the ducks!

I like planting things. Yesterday I bought ten dollars worth of annuals and was very happy up to my elbows in potting soil and good old earth for a couple hours. I still have some left so I get to do it again today! After I buy more potting soil.

As opposed to my cat, who essentially says, ‘‘That will suffice, human.’’ :stuck_out_tongue:

Petting my cat - specifically hitting all the high spots just the way she likes it.

It’s so simple to bring pleasure to a cat.

Schritch an ear when you get the chance…

There’s a mallard duck couple, Mr and Mrs I’m assuming, that come to my back yard every so often to eat seed spilled from the bird feeders. They’re out there now. I like seeing them.

I am just about done refinishing a table that has been in my family for 3 generations.

There are a lot of little things. Today, it was my 17 year old son coming home after 5 hours of doing fairly strenuous yard work for an older couple in our neighborhood. He was tired, sweaty, happy…and talking about how he couldn’t wait to go back next week. They pay him well because he’s not afraid of hard work.

When someone says they took my advice and it was good/correct and it helped them.

Lifting weights.

When I let me dog out, and she turns around and looks over her shoulder to see if I will come out, too, and throw her the stick.

Bicycling on a perfect spring day.

Fixing something that would otherwise have been thrown away.